


Put your arms around me, baby

by steelneena



Series: CR1 Oneshots and Short Series [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, First Time, Hand Jobs, Love Confessions, Modern AU, Skinny Dipping, Virgin Percy, kind of a college au, love is kink, slight D/s overtones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: He's not quite sure how he ended up here.He, Percival de Rolo, of all people, who hadn’t wanted to stay in Emon for the summer, who’d wanted to go back home after his year exchange ended, remain cooped up in his room at home with his experiments and his books, was naked in a lake at night, kissing a beautiful woman – also naked – in his lap who could, if he was quite honest, do far better that his wiry, nerdy, early-gone-white self.He can’t believe he’s doing this.





	Put your arms around me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure I have many. I was taking a swim? And decided this would be a great idea? And ended my swim early to write it? And then, because it's these two, Feeling (tm) happened? Typical. 
> 
> Written to a medely of Sugar Ray songs, because what else would you write skinny dipping to?
> 
> Title from "Fly" by Sugar Ray

Percy can’t _believe_ he’s doing this. The moon is full and their friends could wake up at - quite literally – any moment, and here he is, trailing Vex over the beach, her giggles the only sound to potentially give them away. His ankle twists in the sand once and he almost goes down, but she’s right there, in those cute little sleep shorts and that racerback tank top from her last archery competition, her name emblazoned across the back. In the moonlight, her shoulders, normally bronze in the sun, are a beautiful, gunmetal silver. She’s still half jogging towards the sparkling, placid surface of the lake when, muscles taut, she pulls the tank over the top of her head, dropping it unceremoniously to the sand, and it’s a miracle he doesn’t trip again, because the beautiful, silken expanse of her back is revealed and he’s half sure his jaw’s dropped. Long strands of her dark hair have escaped the braid; they drift across her shoulders as she turns her head – just her head – to look back at him, and her coy expression leaves him hot, blushing furiously, all down his extremely pale chest, which is likely ghostly in the silver light of night.

And then, she shimmies out of her shorts, leaving her completely naked. Percy’s brain, already short-circuiting, positively overloads when they hit him in the face. When he comes back to himself, Vex is already knee deep in the lake, the moon backlighting her gorgeous, impossibly strong silhouette.

He can’t _believe_ he’s doing this.

With a little bit of force, Percy huffs a breath, shakes his head to psych himself out, and slips out of his boxers. He's glad that it’s dark, because, despite the fact that the weather couldn’t be hotter, the water is more than likely a bit chilly and he’s a certified wuss, of course, and he's _just_ this side of mortified that her first glimpse of him may be rather less than flattering.

Only Vex could have gotten him to do this.

Toes in the water, Percy pulls a face to keep himself from making an embarrassing noise. It doesn’t take too long to get used to it. Actually, it feels quite nice. The lack of wind makes the humid air stifling, but he catches a glimpse of Vex’s firm calves and it’s like he’s just had the best glass of lemonade in his life, because suddenly, he has the courage of a hundred men and he takes the rest of the "plunge" – water to his ankles.

Vex looks over her shoulder to him, and he can just make out the shadow of a smile. “You made it.”

“Yes, well, I had a particularly good motivator.”

“That so?”

Another few steps and he’s finally standing next to her. “Absolutely.”

Very gently, belaying the strength that’s held in her form constantly, Vex reaches out and lays her slender, calloused hand on his chest, fingers teasing in the dusting of light hair there. He tenses, unintentionally. “When you decided to stay out here this summer, did you imagine us here?”

“Us?” Percy asks, blinking rather rapidly. Suddenly, he wishes for his glasses. He hadn’t considered the necessity for them when she shook him awake earlier. Hadn’t realized how much he’d like to dissect the slightest alteration of her expression, when, at the moment, her lovely face is a blur. It seems the joke is on him. “Well, to be honest, no, I hadn’t.” What he doesn’t say is that he’d imagined _her_ here, only he was still asleep in his bed during those fanciful imaginings.

“Not even once, Percival?” she asks, and the use of his full name sends shivers cascading down his spine as completely as if she’d dribbled cool lake water there with the touch of her hand. 

“No. Honestly.”

He thinks he can make out a pout, and then, Vex turns her whole body parallel to him and takes a step forward. Percy closes his eyes for twofold reasons: one, she’s even more of blur that close, so it’s almost easier just imagining her expression instead of trying to parse it out, and two, her breasts are now pressed up against his chest, her hand trapped between them.

“Gods, you’re just gorgeous, Percy," she says, hushed, almost awed. "And to think I wasn’t going to stay out here this summer. To think I was going to go on exchange last year. None of this would have ever happened. We wouldn’t have met at all.”

Swallowing hard, Percy tries not to think about _other_ things that are growing hard.

“I think, even if we hadn’t met, I’d still feel your absence.”

At that, Percy’s eyes fly open on instinct. It’s the single most poetic thing that’s ever dropped from Vex’s lips in his hearing, Vex who is usually brash and bold and even, sometimes, a bit crass (and he’s very firmly _not_ thinking about the time he’d caught a glimpse of her topless at Grog’s mudwrestling match when she’d flashed the big man to keep him in the game).

“You really think so?” he asks, wondering why it’s him here, and not someone more like Grog. Or that Jarrett fellow that Vex had spotted while they were hiking that first week and had to turn around and jog backwards to watch his ass as he went. Admittedly, her twin had done the exact same thing, but Vax was a _strictly_ off limits topic for his brain when…when… _this_ was happening.

The hand that she’d left on his chest traveled upwards, rounding smoothly over his shoulder. “I really do, you know. You could talk about…fuck, I don’t know _calipers_ or something for five hours and I’d still want to be in the room with you the whole time.”

“I could…arrange that, actually, if you’re serious.” When he makes to push his glasses up the nose, only to realize they aren't there, he masks the habit by scratching the spot for a moment. All through it, she's watching him carefully, he can tell, and if he didn't feel exposed before, he certainly does now.

The soft twinkling of her laugh is as bright as the moon’s reflection on the water. “I’m sure you can. Hey, let’s swim, yeah?”

“Yes, actually,” he replies, happy that the water’s chill temperature is going to turn out a blessing. He knows he needs the time to… _cool off_. “Let’s.”

Before he can stride further into the lake, Vex leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, stunning him a little bit.

And, even for the fact that when she’d said she wanted to go for a swim, naked, with him, this, this kiss is the most surprising thing that’s happened the entire night. Like an absolute fool, Percy touches his lips, spellbound, where the lingering feel of hers remain, even as she wades further into the lake, the tips of her hair now dragging in the water behind her. His legs nearly give out from under him, but, at the last minute, he collects himself and starts out towards her, his rather rapid pace eliciting a few unwanted splashes, and for the third time that night, he almost trips over his own feet in his haste to get to her.

The water is almost icy against the heat of his skin, blanketed by the humidity in the air, but it definitely relieves certain pressing problems.

Vex is out even farther, at just the perfect height for her breasts to rest atop the surface before she turns to face him. _Fuck_ , he thinks, and he’s gone, so, _so_ far gone on her that he can’t remember what life was like before she walked into his world. She could _trample_ him, and he’d thank her, at this point. And she _is_ capable of overpowering him, even if he wasn’t already so willing to let her. For a moment, he flashes back to their group trip to the local stables, to the grit of her teeth and the strain of her muscles as she loosed arrows while riding a horse bareback through an open field, her hair streaming out behind her. But he shakes it off. Vex is _here_ and _now_ , and that is where he ought to be, too. At this distance, when she winks, he can make it out and suddenly, she’s submerged. When she comes up from under, her braid is loosened, her hair fanning out atop the water around her like she’s some sort of mermaid come to tempt him to his doom.

Smirking, she pushes her hand out at him, sending a few flecks of water spattering across his chest. Maybe leaving the glasses behind _was_ a good idea after all.

“You coming?”

Percy splutters at her choice of words. “I – yes.”

“Well then, what are you waiting for?”

_To wake up? To get hit by a dream train in the middle of a dream lake only to rouse after my dream death and be asked by Scanlan what kind of sexy fantasy I was in the middle of before he slapped me awake to poke fun at my hard on?_

In lieu of any of those utterly mortifying and absolutely truthful replies, Percy takes a breath and ducks under, swimming out towards her a ways before coming up for breath.

She’s scant inches from him when he finally blinks the droplets from his vision. “Hello.”

“Hello yourself, darling.”

One minute, he’s treading water and then, the next, he’s treading water more furiously, because Vex is resting in his lap, wrapping her legs around his waist, arms about his neck, looking down at him like she’s about to eat him alive.

He’d let her do that, too.

“Percy?” Vex hesitates, uncharacteristically for a moment. “Percy, when summer’s over-“

He doesn’t wait for her to finish, tilting his head up just enough to kiss her gently, soft and tender. The kind of kiss she deserves.

“When summer is over, I’m staying here.”

It’s hard to tell if the shining in her eyes is tears, or just the moonlight, or the remnants of water on his eyelashes, making it rather difficult to make out her expression, but when she doesn’t say anything at all, his first impulse is that he’s said the wrong thing, and it’s only the fact that he knows he’ll dunk under if he stops treading water that keeps him from completely panicking.

“Do you really mean that?” The awe in her tone is palpable and relief crests over him.

“I do," he says, nodding. "Yes."

“Oh, oh Percy!” She leans in this time, her hands on either side of his face, and kisses him soundly. It’s a long, firm kiss, as though Vex is attempting to transfer an understanding of whatever overwhelming slew of emotions that’s come over her. The tip of her tongue runs along the seam of his lips and he gives in, parting to her happily as he hums into her mouth.

He’s a terribly inexperienced kisser. He’s terribly inexperienced with _all_ of this as a general rule, but with Vex it feels right and good. Natural. And by some miracle of gods or science, she seems to be liking whatever it is he’s doing, which must mean he’s doing it right.

“Fuck,” Vex cries breathlessly when they part, Percy panting beneath her. “Fuck, Percy, I - I love you.”

For one, incandescent minute, it’s as though he’s got twenty-twenty vision, because he sees her perfectly in that infinite moment, her smile wide, the apples of her cheeks shining with water or tears or both, lips kiss swollen and it’s he who’s done this to her. _He!_ And she _loves_ him.

Vex _loves_ him and he’s sure he’s sprouted wings at the very thought, because his heart is soaring.

“I love you, too!” It comes out too loudly at first, almost a bit too excitable and she bites her lip, but she’s still smiling around it. He can tell. “I think I’ve about loved you since the moment I set eyes on you,” he admits. “But I love all of you, now. I can’t imagine leaving, so I simply shan’t.”

“Gods, you’re so formal, you dork!” Vex giggles. “Come on, kiss me again, darling. Please? I’m crazy, Percy, I feel wild, like a-a deer! I feel like I’ve run a million miles an hour, like my heart’s just going to combust. I must sound completely ridiculous. Do I?” What she sounds, to Percy’s ears, is verging on hysterical, and he'd be worried if she wasn't hold on to him so tightly. “Kiss me, Percy, please, gods, kiss me.”

He doesn’t deny her. 

Through it all, she guides him, soft sounds slipping out occasionally as he tries to lose himself in the strangely relaxing (especially considering that he’s grown used to the water, and Vex is _In. His. Lap._ ) act of kissing her, pushing away the creeping, existential thoughts where he’s moving outside his body, watching them floating together in the lake _necking_ , wondering how on earth he ended up in this position.

He, Percival de Rolo, of all people, who hadn’t _wanted_ to stay in Emon for the summer, who’d wanted to go back home after his year exchange ended, remain cooped up in his room at home with his experiments and his books, was _naked_ in a lake at night, _kissing_ a beautiful woman – also naked – in his lap, who could, if he was quite honest, do far better that his wiry, nerdy, early-gone-white self.

Pulling back for breath, Vex looks down at him, and he blinks out of his glassy eyed stupor.

“You with me, darling?” she asks, looking concerned for a moment. “You went a bit still there.”

 _Oh._ “Oh. I, sorry, this is going to sound terrible, but I’m a bit distracted, you see, wondering exactly how it’s me that’s here, in this position right now, and not someone else.”

“Because you’re you, and I happen to like that very much.” Vex lifts a hand from his shoulder to bop his nose lightly. “There’s no one else I’d rather be here with, right now.”

“I guess I’ll simply have to take your word for it, then,” he replies, unable to look away from her.

“Guess you will.”

There’s a period of time where the world seems to still around them, and Percy thinks that, if nothing else is infinite, this is: how Vex looks in the moonlight, how Vex looks _at him_ in the moonlight, how she feels, floating just above him, the water lapping at his shoulders as they bob lazily, the shadow of her eyelashes on her cheeks as she blinks. Suddenly, in the wake of that silence, he’s nervous, which seems silly, considering that he just declared his love for Vex, after she’d done the same, that they’re _swimming naked_. And somehow, it always seems to come back down to that. Back down to his inexperience.

“Everything alright Percival?” Vex’s hand lands on his cheek, her thumb just barely skimming his lower lip.

His jaw works for a minute as he tries to think of something to say that _won’t_ make him sound like a complete dumbass. “I-yes. Yes, I should think everything is _far_ beyond ‘alright’." Okay, so that was maybe a _tad_ overeager. “I may not have anticipated it, but this…ah, I mean, you and I, here, in this moment. It’s…everything.” His mouth is unbearably dry. He's positively mortified. “Everything.”

Vex leans back down again, her powerful body moving in acutely gentle ways, and rests her forehead against his. “You have no idea how much you’ve changed my life, Percy. This past year…being with you this summer, you’re everything I wanted, but never really knew I needed. Does that make sense?” She shakes her head, still leaning against him. “I must sound so silly to you.”

“You don’t. You don’t sound silly at all.” Gingerly, tentative, he slides his hands up the smooth flesh of her bare back. “I think it makes perfect sense.” He likes the quiet. He likes solitude. Even better, he likes being quiet and alone _with_ Vex, so they stay like that for a little bit holding one another carefully, just breathing, the only marring mark on the perfect mirror of the lake. But, before long, he’s growing cold again, and Vex has goosebumps up and down her arms.

“Care to swim a bit?” he asks, feeling emboldened by her own apparent insecurity. It’s nice to know that, for all she can be crass, she can also be a bit timid. Some voice in the back of his head tells him that’s _probably_ because she _does_ like him in more ways than just the physical. Hadn’t she _just_ got done telling him _again_ that she loved him?

“Yes, I think that’s a very good idea,” Vex replies, pushing off him, leaving Percy feeling bereft, despite the fact that swimming was actually his suggestion in the first place.

She rolls to her back, pushing herself away from him, motions a little silly, like an octopus, before lifting her foot high enough to splash him in the face, letting out a giddy laugh.

“What was that for!?” he cried out, indignant, as he swam after her. “You’ll wake the others!”

“Oh, who cares?” Vex called back, though she did lower her voice. “Let them see, just as long as they don’t join in. I want you all to myself right now.”

A puff of pride fills his chest and Percy smirks, gripping her round the ankle and hauling her back closer to him. “That makes two of us. Though, I’d rather well the others didn’t see,” he adds as an afterthought.

Vex, grinning, tugs her foot from his loose grasp before sending out her arms in powerful strokes that push her back and away from him again. “Come get me, Percy.”

Far be it from him to deny her. For a while, they swim about in a playful chase, almost a bit like tag. Somewhere along the line, she’s begun to chase him instead. Percy isn’t a bad swimmer by any means, but Vex has spent many summers in the lake, where he’s spent many summers in his workshop. She toys with him a bit, pretending to just miss him, though she could have caught him easily many times. And, when she finally does catch his shoulder, pulling him backwards into her, the chill is long gone.

Vex wraps around him from behind, stroking his sopping wet hair as she rests her chin on his shoulder. “Got you, darling,” she says, soft, sultry. And then, the hand over his heart descends and his breath catches as her fingers come terrifyingly close to places _far_ more sensitive than his chest. “Are we good?” she asks, stilling quite suddenly. “If you’re not-“

“I’m good,” he cuts her off, voice thick. “Just…I’ve never…" he waves a hand in the water, suggestively, "...with someone else…before...”

A lingering kiss is pressed just below his ear and he shudders. “I’ll go slow. I promise. You tell me what you like, Percival. Let me take care of you, darling.” Vex’s nails scrap very lightly over the sensitive skin of his abdomen. “Can you do that?”

He doesn’t bother asking her which she means, it may as well be both. “Y-yes,” he stammers. “ _Please_.”

“Do you want it like this? Or do you want us to see one another?”

It takes a moment for him to respond, swallowing heavily before he can. “I don’t… this is…fine.”

“Be honest, darling," she insists. "I want you to be comfortable. This is for you, Percival.”

He's shocked by how long it takes him to respond, to form any real coherent response, to even _know_ what it is he wants at all. For one thing, her touch, he very much wants that, and her closeness. Like this, with her wrapped around him from behind, he feels safe, close, and yet…

"I... don't know." A little, nervous laugh escapes him. "I don't honestly know. This is good, I think, but if I can't see you, can you talk? Please?" It feels silly to ask, and he's not sure if it'd be any different if they were in a bed in a private room, and not in a lake at night, but then, he's not really sure how _any_ of this works at all, when there's another person involved. Somehow, with Vex, he's unafraid to ask. 

"Of course, Percy, of course." She tightens her hold on him, gentle but firm, sliding her legs down from his waist to his thighs. "Mmm. You're strong aren't you? Oh, Percy, those _legs_ …" Her core muscles flex against his back, her hand inching lower. "I'm going to touch you now, alright?"

"Gods, please, yes," he says, but he's still unprepared for the first touch of her hand on him. It's strange, through the water, heightened and yet altered, and far, far different from the touch of his own hand, odd being unable to anticipate how she will touch him, how he will respond. He surprises himself completely, bucking in her loose grip. 

"Fuck," Vex grits out, as his thrashing dips her back in the water. "Oh fuck!" She laughs, spluttering through a small splash of water. 

"Ah - sorry, Vex-Vex'ahli- _ah._ ” His words are stolen as she tightens her grip, hand moving up and down over him, beneath the water, sending little waves cascading out around them. 

“No apologies, Percy, this is…” she coughs behind him, still laughing “Fan _tastic_.”

If she didn’t sound so utterly sincere – and he wasn’t so wrapped up in the absolutely unignorable sensation of her hand on his cock – Percy isn’t so sure he’d believe her. It’s certainly not the way he’d imagined his first time with another person, but it will, most assuredly, be memorable. That is, if he can find it in himself to focus on _anything_ other than not drowning as she strokes him, thumb brushing teasingly over the slit at the head, sending him lax for a moment. His head falls back on her shoulder as his vision sparks white and he’s gasping. Words fall to his ears, but his brain doesn’t process them; he only knows that it’s her, that it’s Vex, her voice soothing, even as her grip tightens and she speeds up. It’s torturous and perfect and unpredictable, and if he drowns in a lake during his first hand job, he doesn’t care because he’s with Vex and she _won’t_ let him drown anyways, and the friction of her palm, the vice of her grip, the graze of her teeth on his earlobe-

A hand presses over his mouth just in time to stifle his cry when he comes, hips stuttering as she jacks him through it.

“-at’s it, Percy, good boy,” Vex is saying when he comes back to himself. He’s twitching, still; listening to her talk him down as the aftershocks work over him is somehow alluring in itself. The shushing leaves him shuddering for other reasons entirely, though he hasn’t exactly put a name to what those are yet.

“God, you’re incredible. Look at you, darling.” Vex doesn’t relent, though eventually, her hand leaves his spent cock. “Look how you shine in the moonlight.”

It’s his turn to laugh, his mental image a lot more humorous than sensual, but the attempt fails. No sound leaves him, only air.

“You’re so fucking beautiful. I can’t – _fuck_ – fucking wait to hold your hand in public so everyone can know you’re mine. _Fuck_.”

Vex sounds wrecked, which doesn’t quite compute, if only because Percy _knows_ he hasn’t touched her at all yet. Despite the immediate desire, he hadn’t even palmed her breast. And _oh_ , had he wanted to. By the time he finally feels steady enough to tread water on his own again, Vex is still babbling, smoothing her hand over his chest and interspersing her words with kisses that dot over his neck and shoulder, and he’s more than positive that he’ll have hickeys too numerous to count and too obvious not to explain come morning.

Weakly, Percy lifts his head from her shoulder, which quiets her long enough for him to formulate a response.

“Show me?”

“What, darling?” Vex asks, breathless as he turns, sloshing water between them as he faces her.

“Show me what to do. I want you to feel good, too.” _So eloquent_ , he berates, mentally, but it is truthful, at least.

Vex doesn’t make him ask twice, taking his face in her hands and kissing him soundly. “That’s a good start. Now, your hand please, dear.”

“Where should I put it?” he asks, raising a brow. He’s just far enough away to make out that she raises one back before she leans in, stealing another kiss, and then, whispers:

“Everywhere.”

And being that she’s Vex, and he’s Percy, he does as she says, starting with the obvious. He takes the buoyant weight of her left breast in his hand, thumbing at her nipple, pebbled hard in the cold water, before giving an experimental squeeze.

“ _Gods_ ,” she gasps, throwing her head back, dramatically. “Should have pegged you for a tits guy.”

“I’ll assume that that is a positive trait,” he replies, chuckling, feeling a bit braver, watching how she writhes at such a simple touch. A moment later, he makes a quick decision, grasping her elbow, spinning her in the water, and pulling her back against his chest, much as she hand done for him, sliding his arms under hers. “Is this good?”

“Oh _very_ ,” she replies, voice pitched a bit higher than before. He resituates to continue fondling her breast, but pauses on his way to the other destination to swish her hair around and out of his way, pressing a kiss to the side of her head as he does, before slipping it back under the water and over the taut muscles of her stomach.

“Guide me. Show me how you like it best. I’m fairly positive I couldn’t have a better teacher.”

“You’re – _hhh_ – damn right,” Vex bites out, placing her hand atop his and guiding it to her center. Together, their fingers slide between her folds, slick in some ways, and, perhaps a side effect of the water, not, in others. All the same, her panting breaths increase and she presses enticingly back against him, clutching his hand tighter, even though her movements grow less steady. Eventually, she guides him up a ways, taking forefinger and middle finger, folding the rest under, into his palm, and presses their fingers down hard just above her warmth. Slowly at first, she moves them in a clockwise motion against her, and when it seems like he’s gotten the hang of it, releases him, floating trustingly in his embrace.

“Faster,” she hisses after a space of time where the only sound is the sloshing of water and their combined panting. “And harder - _ooo, fuck, Percival!”_ She reaches back abruptly, fingers threading into the hair at the back of his head and tugs, urging him on.

It takes her longer than it took him, (of course) and she has to slip a hand back down once or twice to adjust his movements, but eventually, beautifully, she falls apart in his arms, little keening sounds falling like the precious, intangible light of stars from her full lips, and he has the utterly irrational thought that he’d like to drink those sounds straight from her mouth for the rest of his life. Now, he thinks, he understands how she could find his pasty figure beautiful in the moonlight, for she’s striking as her passion compounds and she lets go all sense, all purpose and thought, sighing her pleasure achieved beneath his unsteady hands.

He’s utterly enraptured and it almost feels better than the orgasm. _Almost_.

“That was-“

“Good, hopefully?” he asks, only a little bit pompously.

“Oh, you’re lucky I love you so much.” Vex floats still for a moment before rolling and, lazily, reaching out to hang her arms about his neck, resting against his chest. “That was lovely, dear. Really lovely. Mmm.”

He can feel her jaw work against his collar bone as she yawns.

“We should get back to shore, I think,” he whispers, kissing her crown again. “Before you fall asleep, dear.”

“You’re probably right.”

Somehow, Percy gets the feeling that, though she’s verbally in agreement, Vex has no immediate plans beyond doing exactly what she’s already doing, which is a whole lot of nothing. Even though he ultimately feels much the same way, he knows that she’s put herself in his hands, that he’s all that’s holding her up now, much as she had done for him, before. It’s probably his one and only opportunity to impress her with what he has in mind – the only time it may even be physically possible – even though she’s already half asleep on him, so he does it anyways, and using the water to aide him, Percy scoops Vex into his arms.

“Mmm, you’re cheating,” she murmurs, though she makes no move to dislodge herself from his grip. “But it’s hot. It’s _really_ hot.”

He half swims that way, until he reaches a point in the lake where he can stand and then, lifts her, dripping, out of the water and walks onto shore, where he sets her down. Even though her feet have met the sand, she’s left her arms around him, her head pillowing on his chest and Percy puts an arm around her, pulling her in tightly.

“I do love you,” he whispers, almost afraid to break the intimacy of the quiet.

“I -mm- love you too.” Comfortable and peacefully, Vex shuts her eyes, breathing evenly where they stand. Half holding her, half guiding her, Percy walks Vex back to her personal tent, gathering their clothes as he goes, but leaving them just inside the tent, choosing instead to help Vex into her sleeping bag without dressing first, water droplets still dappling her skin, though the air has dried most of it already.

As he makes to go, Vex’s hand shoots out, gripping his arm, vicelike. “Don’t leave?”

It’s no surprise when he finds that he doesn’t want to, though he hesitates just a moment, worried that she’ll regret it. That she’ll regret him, but her fingers flex on his arm and she whines, insistently. So he closes the tent door behind him instead, and lays down beside her, careful, tentative. But Vex curls into his chest, her head a now familiar weight, and Percy too, feels sleep start to claim him.

 _Let them see_ , he thinks to himself, moments from sleep. _Let them see that I love her_.

Maybe it’s dramatic and irrational and unrealistic, but, in the haze of night, Percy knows that Vex is his one and only, and in the morning, when they wake, he’ll tell her.


End file.
